Динамо Киев / Dynamo Kyiv FK

Full name FC Dynamo Kyiv

Founded 1927
Ground Lobanovsky Dynamo Stadium
Capacity 16,900
Chairman Igor Surkis
Head Coach Anatoly Demyanenko
League Ukrainian Premier League
2005–06 2nd

FC Dynamo Kyiv is a professional football club from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev (Kyiv). (Ukrainian: ФК Динамо Київ, FK Dynamo Kyiv; Russian: Динамо Киев, Dinamo Kiev)
The club was founded in 1927 as an amateur team, part of Dinamo, a nation-wide Soviet sport society. This society later became officially funded and patronized by the NKVD (a KGB predecessor), and later by the interior ministry (MVD). In the 1950s–1980s, team players were even officially ranked as police or interior armed forces officers. However, thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens paid symbolic membership fees for the "sport society".
During the Soviet era, the club was one of the main rivals, and oftentimes the only rival, to the football clubs from Moscow. Its ability to challenge the dominance of the Moscow clubs in Soviet football, and frequently defeat them to win the Soviet championship, was a matter of national pride for Ukraine. Leaders of the Ukrainian SSR unofficially regarded the club as their national team and provided it with generous support. Thus, Dinamo became a de-facto professional team of international importance.

After the Soviet Union's collapse, the club, now using the Ukrainian name Dynamo Kyiv, became a member of the new football league of Ukraine. Dynamo's status as the country's principal club did not alter as they went on to dominate domestic cups. This dominance has recently been challenged by FC Shakhtar Donetsk from the eastern region of Donbass, which won the national championship in 2002, 2005, and 2006, leaving Dynamo in the second place.
Since 1993, the team has been owned by Hryhoriy Surkis, a Ukrainian businessmen and oligarch, one of the richest tycoons in Eastern Europe (with interests in electricity, oil trade, and allegedly in organized crime). The Ukrainian opposition has accused the government of setting too low a price and other irregularities during the privatization of the club. Surkis is closely linked to former President Leonid Kuchma, being a member of the so-called "Kiev holding", or "Dynamo group", an influential business and political clan, formally organized as the SDPU(o) political party. The team's symbols and players, formerly including Andriy Shevchenko, have been used in political advertisements for pro-Kuchma politicians in recent elections.